Rewards System Working!

This week Buster's therapist decided to try a simple rewards system.  Up until now I wasn't sure he was old enough.  Turns out, he is.  This is so simple and we've used it only to get him to either try something new or get through those final brutal 15 minutes of eating a whole meal.

Tangent for a moment:  We actually hit our goal 1300 calories yesterday!  Thank you Duocal!  Not inexpensive but worth it!

Back to my original story....I've been trying pancakes and red kidney beans this week.  Not together, of course, but pancakes at lunch and the beans at dinner.  The pancakes have a decent calorie count, especially with butter melted into them.  Buster can't see the butter so he doesn't argue about it!  And the beans also have a decent calorie count and add protein and fiber.

He hasn't been thrilled about either one of them but takes 2 or 3 bites with some coaxing.  Well, his therapist suggested we give him something visual to get to a goal of say, 5 bites.  She drew 5 circles on a piece of paper and I pulled a sheet of little stickers out of the art bin.  Buster LOVES stickers.  He got a sticker for every bite of pancake (and later bean).  He took bites himself, with no argument.  Once he reached the goal of filling all 5 circles, he got a veggie straw.  He loves those potato chip-esque veggie straws.  He was happy, we were happy!

So, for the last two nights, I've used this system to get the last of his dinner into him.  It's taking about an hour to get him to eat everything he needs to eat.  By the last 15 or 20 minutes, he's sick of eating and we're sick of him doing everything he can do to avoid eating: play/be funny/park his "car" (fork) in the "garage" between his plate and cup/shake his head/play with his cup/play with his napkin....you get my point.  He's done and we're done but the food isn't in him.  Last night I drew one line of 5 circles, the number of bites of chicken nugget he had left on his plate.  And, 10 circles for the number of bites of grilled cheese "super man bread and cheese sandwich" I thought he needed to finish.  After every bite he popped into his mouth (with no argument, mind you) he got to pick a sticker and place it inside a circle.  Within about 5 minutes, he was "all done!" and it was "cookie time!".  He got his after dinner thin mint girl scout cookie.  He ate about 1/3 of it but I don't really care.  He ate his dinner, he got his calories, I got the rest of the cookie.

I'm so glad those sticker packets come with 1,000 stickers.  We're going to go through a lot of stickers.  Eventually the system and rewards themselves will change but this is a GREAT start!